The messenger
by Niliathiel
Summary: Tolkien used to understand his stories as mythology which made them so real... but what if it was really a myth? An almost forgotten knowledge being handed down to him? One shot


The messenger

He had often walked this way in the morning. He knew every street and each morning he enjoyed the fresh air going around the houses. Even on this morning when all was as it had always been... but so very different.

He had spotted the stranger but not heeded him. A tall grown man with a young and noble looking face, whose black hair was bound to a loose tail and whose looks made him think of the few verses that had come to his mind a few days ago and which he had written down on a little piece of paper quickly.

"And Èarendil did spring

over the Mid-world´s rim"

Where had these words come from? Where the name? He was still young and since he had been a child he had felt a fascination for old sagas and legends. Had he caught this name- Èarendil- somewhere between their pages and put it into his own little rhyming without knowing it? But after all, what was the "Mid-world" then?

He interrupted his thoughts when he turned around a bend and entered the next street. It was a cool morning, but the sky promised fine weather. The stranger stood close to the road looking at a tall beech that was standing at a small park´s rim. Was he waiting for someone?

He walked past the stranger and nodded his head to greet him. He knew how to behave and even used to greet strangers. Most of them only nodded in return, but this stranger turned his gaze away from the rustling leaves of the tree and looked after him. He felt his gaze in his back and stopped. Why did he do this? He was a stranger he had never seen before and would surely not even meet ever again, for he seemed not to come from this part of the country. If he thought about it, the man didn´t even fit in here.

He turned around. The stranger looked at him. The feeling was not unpleasant although the expression in this man´s eyes was different from everything he had known so far. The man´s eyes had the colour of a stormy sea and although his face made him no day older than 30 years, there was an agelessness inside his grey eyes which he couldn´t unerstand.

None of them spoke when he made his way back, walking towards the stranger. Why was he doing this? Was it curiousity? Was it a strange kind of...power that made him know that there was something the stranger intended to tell him?

When he stopped in front of him, he saw how tall the stranger really was. He was at least one head taller than him, but still his body – as far as he could judge under the wide jacket the man was wearing- was slender and at the same time grazile in a way he couldn´t catch.

The stranger was silent for another while, then his right hand reached into his pocket and took out something. He stepped closer to see what it was. It was a necklace. No piece of jewelry, rather a simple chain without a pendant.

He scowled when the stranger handed the chain to him. When he touched it, he felt a strange feeling, just as if he had stepped into another kind of world. This chain he suddenly knew, had its own history. But what was it like?

"He beared this chain!" It was the first time that the stranger spoke and when he looked at him he realized that a deep sadness was in his eyes. And again the words came rushing into his head:

"...over the Mid-world´s rim.."

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I am a messenger" he replied and carefully closed his hand around the chain. "And I know you are the one we are looking for." Now he was puzzled. "Looking for?" he asked. "Why? For what reason?" Who was he?

"Èarendil...over the Mid-world´s rim..."

"Our world is fading." The stranger said. "And soon it will be lost. All that once was will fade behind the veil of times like dew rising up from morning´s meadows." He looked at him and a wordless pleading was in his ageless eyes. "Write. Write down what is inside your head." „What?" „Write down all the things that go through your mind. It has started and I can feel it. For if you don´t do it, the old world will perish forever and there will be nobody left to remember the old tales."

His thoughts were racing. Was this man talking in madness?

He knew he wasn´t but didn´t know why he was so sure. "...over the Mid-world´s rim..."

The stranger smiled and pointed his fingers to the side of his own head. "It´s all inside you, in your head. You must only discover, for the old knowledge, all the lore, the tales of the old ages ere the world broke assunder... you remember them. Write them down."

His heart started to beat faster. Did the stranger know about what whirled around inside his mind of late? This couldn´t be true! These were only stories, his own stories, his own characters, made up by the essence of his human mind. Not memories of what once had been.

"Yes, it is!" the man said, as if he had read his mind and suddenly he knew he was true.

"Write!" the stranger said again. Gather the old stories. Our heros´deeds, deeds of the tall but..." and again he looked at the chain. "...as well the deeds of the small folk, for what they did was not less important."

With these words the stranger lay the hand on his shoulder, a hand with fine limbed but strong fingers, then he smiled at him, turned around and walked away.

He stayed where he was, holding the chain in his hand... thinking. A cold breeze rustled through the stranger´s hair and for a short moment revealed his right ear. He startled. It was no normal ear, it was pointy. Like an Elf´s ear. He had always thought of Elves as small creatures with wings. But maybe they were tall and beautiful like this stranger.

A moment later the stranger had disappered and when he himself had reached his destination he had forgotten about him.

In the evening when he was in his room he pulled the chain out of his pocket, smiling when he remembered how he had found it lying on the street this morning. It would look pretty with a pendant. She would like it. He put the chain aside and took out a small booklet and an old pencil. The last lines he had noted down were:

„And Èarendil did spring

over the Mid-world´s rim"

He started writing...

Notes:

1the chain... don´t know who of you realized... is meant to be the chain Frodo used for the One Ring. :-)

2The "She" mentioned in the end is supposed to be JRRT´s later wife Edith.


End file.
